


Weaknesses

by Rasiaa



Category: Warcraft - All Media Types, World of Warcraft
Genre: Gen, M/M, POV Outsider
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-12
Updated: 2020-06-12
Packaged: 2021-03-04 05:20:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,752
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24678340
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rasiaa/pseuds/Rasiaa
Summary: SI:7 is a dangerous organization. That's because of Shaw.Too many people lost to that man and his tricks. However, no person is completely invulnerable, and Shaw wears a ring.
Relationships: Flynn Fairwind/Mathias Shaw
Comments: 6
Kudos: 66





	Weaknesses

**Author's Note:**

> I suppose this fits the stealth prompt for Fairshaw week, even though I was trying to go in order. But this hit me just before I fell asleep yesterday instead. Go figure. The story for the day off prompt is still being written.
> 
> The blood elf I was using for this is my only Horde character, a hunter. I haven't gone through the Horde story line so there's nothing too specific about anything.
> 
> Also, if it's not obvious, the void elf is Umbric. He gave me a bit of a fright the other day when I found him standing in the shadows on the Wind's Redemption. I had no idea he was there. I imagine my blood elf character wouldn't see him either.

She stumbles on the Spymaster completely by chance.

Snow has muffled her footsteps; she's downwind, alone, and careful besides. Everything works in her favor to sneak up on the man impossible to sneak up on. Her first instinct is to put an arrow in his back, and she even nocks one in her bow to do just that, but then something makes her pause.

He clearly hasn't noticed her, or she'd already be dead. She knows full well she's not significant enough to have a file cross his desk, and therefore she's expendable. But she knows him, even by the slight view of his profile that she's briefly awarded. She knows the general would never forgive her if she missed an opportunity for information, even if she does manage to kill him. She's not foolish enough to think she really can, anyway. He'd hear the arrow.

He kneels by a river that's mostly frozen. If there's one thing to be said about Drustvar, it's that it's too damn cold by half. His hands are shaking. She creeps forward, taking even more care than she already had been. He takes off his gloves to get the water.

There's a wedding band on his finger.

It can't be anything else. This is sharp, clean cut gold--simple, but expensive. No one puts that much effort into any other ring, except perhaps an heirloom, but he's no king, not a noble, and heirlooms don't go on the left hand even if it were one. Alliance are too picky about tradition. It's a wedding ring.

No man is completely invulnerable. Everyone has a weakness.

For decades, Shaw has been untouchable. He's a ghost without any soul; there's nothing he cares for, nothing that can be used to bargain with him. The king is all that matters to Shaw, except.

Except, that's no longer the case. Now, there's someone else.

He pulls the gloves back on after he's done drinking the water, shaking and weak from the cold. To kill him would get a lot of problems out of the way. He's alone. He's in the perfect spot for an assassination.

But, it's better to get information from him first, see what he knows. After all, many men would be willing to pay high prices for their wife's safety...

Time to see what Shaw's price is.

...

They've known about an Alliance base called Arom's Stand for quite some time. It's a decent sized base, likely the primary Alliance location in Drustvar. Any others are too small for them to find or to be used for long-time work.

Shaw's been in and out of Arom's Stand pretty often lately, so it's likely that he's stationed there for now.

That in mind, she finds a nook in the mountains nearby to watch what's going on. Lots of Alliance champions running around, including one that had given her quite a bit of trouble a few weeks ago. Her mouth twists into a sneer at the sight of the Night Elf, but she doesn't move.

Shaw left a tent near the edge of the base two hours ago, and hasn't returned. It's dark now, and only guards remain awake.

_Find a file. See who knows what. She's not invisible. She exists somewhere; that ring wasn't there when I saw him last year. It's a new marriage. There's a trace; we can find who she is if we just look. If we have to sneak into Boralus, we will, hell; with the Void Elves on the Alliance's side now, it would be easy to disguise as one of them and get into Stormwind itself. We'll do what we must. Don't fail me, Lethe._

The guards rotate, and she crawls under the edge of the tent.

Sure enough, there's files all over a rickety table. Not a lot, but enough that there's something, surely. She lights a candle from her bag and starts thumbing through the parchment.

The general had given her a notebook for anything she could find; she writes down information on Kul Tiran bases, new uses for herbs they hadn't considered, where to find more resources in Drustvar, since it's so sparse. There's a file for a new Order of Embers, but it's not very thick and seems to be mostly historical. She writes it down anyway; if it's important enough for someone like Shaw, there's probably something of substance to this old origin story.

It takes too long for her to parse through all that. They should've sent someone with a better fluency in the Alliance languages. Briefly, she pauses when a twig breaks outside, but then the footsteps fade and she scowls in annoyance. 

Heart in her throat, she flicks open the last file, but it's a letter she can't read. It's written in Common, clearly, but what little she can make out makes no sense, so she figures it's encoded, too. The penmanship is in a looping Kul Tiran script, so it's even worse on her eyes than the regular letters the Stormwind native Alliance are taught to write. Azerite is mentioned quite often, as well as ships, but they already knew about the Alliance making trips to islands to mine, same as the Horde.

She closes her notebook and lays the files back into place. No doubt Shaw will notice something--he always does, no matter how careful they are--but she does the best she can. She snuffs the candle, takes it, and crawls out of the tent.

Out of curiosity, she glances back as she gets back into the mountains, just in time to see Shaw disappear into his tent.

...

She'd gotten enough information on the Alliance that the general wasn't disappointed with her when she returned. Still, it wasn't quite enough to get her out of the following mission, which was getting into Boralus itself.

She's not looking forward to it.

They get a Blood Elf mage to cast an illusion charm on her skin to make it darker, and then her eyes to give them the haunted, distant glaze that the Void Elves are so known for. Looking in a mirror nearly gives her a heart attack when the mage is done.

Next is to get to Boralus proper and keep her head low to blend in with the Alliance champions. Keeping a hood over her head furthers the illusion, as does the dark robe they gave her. She doesn't feel like it's enough; she feels awfully out of place and exposed.

Still, the Void Elves are eccentric and unnerving enough that no one wants to look too closely at them. Getting to the edge of the city isn't hard.

Then she sees Alleria Windrunner and the plan sort of falls apart. The Void Elves are known to be especially close-knit. It makes sense that the freaks keep close tabs on each other. Their leader knows each one by name; that's well known too. An unfamiliar Void Elf will raise alarm.

A Gnome gives her a funny look, narrowing her eyes. She says something, but for all that she can read some of it, she can't actually speak Common, which is another flaw in this plan. Flashing a smile, she prays that's enough to get the Gnome to go away. The Gnome gives her an uncertain smile back and hurries off, looking back every once in a while.

Sighing, she walks briskly over to the edge of the ship that Alleria Windrunner is standing on. It's like looking at the Warchief in full color and it's unsettling. Her face shouldn't be so full of life.

Shaw isn't there, but some more champions are, as is a general she's seen before but can't remember the name of.

She leans against the wall and has to think. How to get them off the ship and away for long enough to let her work?

The answer comes to her in the form of the fisherman near the edge of the water. They've got a full haul of fish with them. There's a lit lantern above them. She remembers a barrel of alcohol around the corner.

Finding the barrel is simple. Taking care, she kneels next to it, pulls out her quiver of arrows, and looks around. No one's looking, so she opens the tap and lets the alcohol soak one of her arrows. Then another, just in case.

It's a clear shot across the water to the lantern, and when the alcohol hits the open fire, everything under them will go up in flame, including the fisherman, the fish, and the dock. Open chaos and enough danger to get everyone's attention. Hopefully, it's enough for them to abandon the warship, too.

She hides under a staircase, aims the soaked arrow, and releases.

The explosion is even better than she'd hoped. There's a lot of screaming, and she can see every Alliance leader on that ship turn to stare. They start shouting orders and they all leap to help. Ridiculous. They're all too noble to let even one person guard their ship, and too overconfident that this is just a simple mishap. Fools.

She leaps across the water onto a rope and climbs, landing carefully on the deck of the ship. No one raises an alarm so she keeps moving, heading straight for the open door on the other side of the deck.

Below, there are several things she'd expect--cannons, crates, ammunition, blankets. No one's there. This is too easy.

Even easier is that Shaw's office is labeled with his name. She presses her ear to the door but hears nothing, so she tries the doorknob. It's locked, so she kneels and picks the lock quickly, uncaring of whether or not he knows later. She'll have the information she needs by then.

Files on his desk, of course, and on a chair, and in a crate. Several crates, actually, and she realizes with dread that she'll never get through all of it. The chaos outside is still ongoing--she can hear it--but sooner or later it'll end. She can't be caught here.

The first several files yield no results. It's all information she can hardly read, but what she can make out is more of the same information she already got the last time. She doesn't have time to make notes, so she keeps flipping through things, heart racing.

"You've got a lot to learn if you think this is at all efficient," someone says. It's in Thalassian. She freezes in shock and looks up slowly.

A Void Elf stands there, and it's the first time she's ever been this close to one. He looks so much like the Blood Elves that it's jarring to see the Alliance emblem on his clothes. The fabric shimmers in the light as he walks forward. "Now, what is it you're looking for, Blood Elf?"

She doesn't answer.

"Were you the one that went through Master Shaw's tent in Arom's Stand? He was in a tizzy for days after that, you know. Very unpleasant. I can't imagine what he'll do when he hears of this."

There's a window behind her. When she takes a step back, however, she doesn't meet a wall, like she expected. She meets thin air instead. It's too late for her to stop from falling.

If someone could die from sharp, unadulterated terror, she would've. She doesn't fall for long, and when she hits the ground, she's on the other side of the desk, in front of the Void Elf. Against her will, she lets out a shrill shriek of shock, which seems to amuse him. "Never been through a void portal before, have you?" he asks casually. A wave of his hand sees another appear underneath her, and she falls again. The other side of this portal opens in the ceiling, and she lands again where she was, winded.

"Stop!" she begs, shaking. "Please."

He raises his eyebrows. "Should I? Why? You're a Horde spy. What reason should I give you any leeway?"

"We're blood, are we not?" she says desperately, trying to ignore the void magic on his fingertips. "We're High Elves."

"So?" His eyes narrow. "That didn't matter years ago when we were exiled from Silvermoon."

"I didn't make that choice," she refutes, but he doesn't take the bait, rolling his eyes instead.

"Nice try," he says, and everything goes dark.

...

She's clapped in chains when she wakes.

This is not unexpected at all.

What is unexpected is that there's some Kul Tiran in front of her, lounging in a chair. He smiles and waves when he sees her stir. "Flynn Fairwind," he says.

She guesses that's his name. It's a stupid name, but most Alliance names are.

He doesn't seem to expect a response, which is a good thing, because she won't give him one. He's playing idly with a knife and watching her, quiet. Then he says, "You were in my husband's office. Why?"

It's in Orcish, surprisingly. Broken, but passable. It barely registers, however, when she realizes the impact of his words.

Shaw doesn't have some helpless little wife sitting somewhere out of the way. She recognizes this man as a Captain in the Kul Tiran navy by the knife in his hand; standard for their officers. She's been trained on that much, and a closer look sees that this is the man who leads the Azerite expeditions. She vaguely remembers him pulling his ship into port on an island once, when she'd been selected to be on the Horde team. He gave all the orders.

Well.

Fuck.

She should've known that someone like Shaw wouldn't even look at someone who couldn't fend for themselves.

She doesn't have a death wish, but she doesn't know how to talk her way out of this. A Void Elf found her in the Alliance Spymaster's office, and they don't know what she's found. She highly doubts that they'll believe her if she, by some miracle, could communicate that she barely understood it. The Horde isn't known for sending incompetent spies, but that's clearly what she is.

The weight of her failure hits her, and she just looks away.

"Hey. They asked me to do this, since Mathias is in Drustvar and I'm the only one currently not tied up with something else. So we can do this the easy way, or the hard way. Here's a hint: the hard way involves this knife. I'll ask again: why were you in my husband's office?"

"He's the damn Spymaster," she snaps. "Why do you think?"

"He's the Spymaster," he agrees easily. "Which means he has a lot of information. My question, then, is what information you were looking for."

"You," she says. His eyebrows furrow in confusion.

"Me," he says flatly.

"Yes."

He snorts and shakes his head. "Hate to tell you, mate, but I don't have the kind of information that Mathias does. He doesn't tell me anything except what I need to know."

"We knew he was married. I was sent to find out who he was married to."

No point hiding that, she figures. She's going to die anyway.

Unexpectedly, he just starts laughing. "What a stupid thing to send for," he says. "Anyone in Boralus could've told you that; we're not exactly a secret."

"But you are," she insists. "No one knew until I saw his ring."

"Reassuring."

They both look to the door, and Shaw himself steps into the cell. The door slams behind him and he regards her coldly. "Here I thought Flynn was in a world of danger, but you didn't even know?"

She's not sure what answer he's looking for, so she stays silent. Shaw looks her over critically and clearly finds her lacking, which she's sure doesn't bode well.

He gives a clipped order in Common and Flynn gets up; together they leave and a guard steps into the cell instead. He's got a sword. She closes her eyes.

...

"I told you so."

Mathias doesn't want to hear it.

"I told you we'd be fine."

"Yes, and you were right. I'll buy you a drink."

Flynn scoffs. As soon as their bedroom door is closed behind them, Mathias is slammed against the wall, locked there by Flynn. He'd be lying if he wasn't okay with it.

"You could repay me a better way, don't know think?" Flynn whispers, leaning close.

"Oh, fine," he agrees, and isn't proud of the way his voice shakes. He can feel his husband's smirk just before their lips meet.

**Author's Note:**

> Let me know what you think?


End file.
